Decent News, Current 2007

Some of the more decent news in the world: hopeful, courageous, funny,
or just cool. A few are not pleasant, but are stories I think need to
be heard. The following are all LINKS to external sites. Some links
(e.g., many boston.com, many NY Times) stop working after a few days;
some do not. URLs are added when appropriate (not necessarily
daily).

Is
pet overpopulation a myth? Inside Nathan Winograd's "Redemption"
10/2/07 "Based on data from the American Veterinary Medical
Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, the Pet Food
Manufacturers Association, and the latest census, there are more than
enough homes for every dog and cat being killed in shelters every
year. In fact, when I spoke to him for this article, he told me that
there aren't just enough homes for the dogs and cats being killed in
shelters. There are more homes for cats and dogs opening each year
than there are cats and dogs even entering shelters." Wow....

Slur on
Campbell church sign erased mercurynews.com 8/21/07 and Members of Campbell
church reach out to neighbors after vandalism mercurynews.com
8/27/07 "We asked, how can we turn this into love?" Scott
said. "You could feel the energy shift in the room." " "We believe
God's love can't be defaced or damaged, so we're going to put more
love out there." "It's what's right, treating hate with hate isn't going to solve anything, and people with so much hate need to be loved more than the rest of us...."

Coral
Is Dying. Can It Be Reborn? NYTimes.com 5/5/07 "So I thought,
well, these corals are in trouble. And we can make a difference rather
than make money." "In another year or two we'll have several thousand
corals. That's mostly one person making a difference."

Man
known as Secret Santa dies in Mo. news.yahoo.com 1/13/07 His
private holiday giving started in December 1979 when he was at a
drive-in restaurant nursing his wounds from having been fired. It was
the second year in a row he had been fired the week before Christmas.
"It was cold and this carhop didn't have on a very big jacket, and I thought to myself, `I think I got it bad. She's out there in this cold making nickels and dimes,'" he said. He gave her $20 and told her to keep the change.